Jana Harris is a poet who loves history.
Harris will read from her new book “You Haven’t Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore: Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier” at 7 p.m. Dec. 9 at Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, Lake Forest Park.
Based on her research about frontier women, Harris’s poetry resurrects history. She captures the hope, anxiety, anger and despair of these women through a variety of characters and poetic strategies, while archival photographs give faces to the names and details to the settings. At the reading on Tuesday, Harris will be accompanied by the band Miscellany, which specializes in music from the late 18th century to the early 20th century.
Harris, a University of Washington and Writer’s Workshop creative writing instructor, is the winner of a Washington State Governor’s Writers Award (now the Washington State Book Award) and a Pushcart Prize. She is the author most recently of “Horses Never Lie about Love: The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her” about her life raising horses. Harris does most of her writing from home near Sultan, where she cares for six horses.
For the new book, published by the University of Alaska Press, Harris researched the diaries and letters of pioneer women over the course of nearly 30 years.
“As I read, I would create these narratives in my head,” Harris said. “The stories were compelling.”
One that particularly stuck with her was the tale of a slave girl named Amanda Gardener, who at age 7 was given as a wedding present to Lydia Corum, a woman who eventually moved West to Albany, Oregon, with her husband Anderson Deckard and their children. Amanda was free in Albany, where she worked in a flour mill. But, not easily over the fact that she had been owned by Lydia, Amanda continued to care for the Deckard family. When Lydia died, Amanda married another former slave, a blacksmith named Benjamin Johnson.
“After thirty years, I lost Benjamin and went back to the only family I had,” reads Harris’s poem. “If you call on me, Miss Lydia’s granddaughter will answer your knock.”
More
Patrick Jennings: The author of the children’s book series about “Guinea Dog” will read and sign books at 11 a.m. Dec. 14 at Barnes &Noble, 19401 Alderwood Mall Parkway, Lynnwood.
Stephen Merlino: The Mountlake Terrace High School English teacher conducted a successful Kickstarter funding campaign this fall. Now the first of his fantasy trilogy, “Jack of Souls” has been published by Amazon. A trickster rogue must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his next birthday. The sequels, “The Knave of Souls” and “The Prince of Souls” will complete the trilogy in 2015. Go to: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1760448500/the-jack-of-souls-an-epic-fantasy-novel.
To submit news for the Herald’s book calendar, contact reporter Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com
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